The new Litecoin feature Lite.im was developed by blockchain startup Zulu Republic. Based in Zug, Switzerland, the firm develops decentralized applications (DApps) and “is an ecosystem of digital platforms built on the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain.”

According to a Zulu blog post, the new Litecoin feature will enable users to use Litecoin services with text queries via Zulu’s backend LTC API system. Zulu stressed that private key data is not managed by the the company, and instead secured with RSA encryption and the user’s private password.

In the announcement, Zulu said that Lite.im will first be rolled out on the Telegram messenger app, “the most secure messenger in the world,” adding that the app provides privacy that is “built in by default.” Lite.im will allow users to send commands to check their current LTC balance and send LTC to a wallet or an email address.

In the future, the company aims to introduce LTC transactions via text messages (SMS) to enable operations on the Litecoin blockchain for customers with poor internet connection. The startup states that, out of the 64 percent of the global population that owns a mobile phone, only 33 percent have a smartphone with internet connection.

Zulu stressed the decentralized nature of the upcoming feature, saying that it is targeting countries where “internet connectivity is scarce, where the web is censored by autocratic regimes, and where large segments of the population are marginalized by the conventional financial system.”

The statement also says that users will be able to send Litecoin “to those who don’t already have a Litecoin wallet, or to those whose wallet address you don’t know, even if the recipient has no idea how to use cryptocurrency.”

Currently the seventh largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, Litecoin is an open-source project that was released in 2017. The basic idea of the digital currency is to provide faster and cheaper transactions than those of major cryptocurrency Bitcoin (BTC). LTC is trading around $64 at press time, having seen its all-time high of $351 in December 2017, according to Cointelegraph’s Litecoin price index.